


reconnect

by goandneverlookback



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 00:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12024600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goandneverlookback/pseuds/goandneverlookback
Summary: Anatoly Sergievsky sees Florence Vassy at a tournament nearly a year after Bangkok. What all has changed...*Possibly a chapter in my other fic Gone later**If you read at least the prologue of Gone, this piece has more context





	reconnect

 

          "Florence Vassy, please report to the administrative office. Florence Vassy, please report to the administrative office." The PA system has been calling people to the office all day, and for the most part, Anatoly Sergievsky has tuned it out. Not this time. He couldn't even if he wanted to. His dark brown eyes scan the crowd for movement towards the central office. Just a glimpse, just a hint of forbidden fruit...he has to see her, has to know if she's okay. _There_. Her hair is darker, nearly black, but even without seeing her face, even having not seen her for nearly a year, Anatoly knows it's her. She shakes a short tendril of hair out of her face and his heart stops. _Her eyes_. He remembers the night she showed up outside his hotel room door, bruised, broken, and so heartbreakingly fragile. He could've drowned in the depth and layers of emotion in her eyes that night. Today there is...hauntingly nothing. They are flat, expressionless, void of any and all emotion. Walls upon walls built up around her heart, hiding, protecting. She disappears from view and Anatoly waits on baited breath for the end of the day's games. At long last, the sun is setting and the large ballroom in which the tournament games are being held begins to clear. His eyes search furiously, hoping she hasn't yet gone. He is in luck. Her eyes have changed, but her habits have not. She still stays behind to help put away the boards and pieces, to make sure they are properly taken care of. His feet carry him briskly across the room, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts of her.

            "Ren..." Her movements falter for a brief second, noticeable only to those who know her, before continuing with her task.

            "Mr. Sergievksy." Her voice matches her eyes. It is flat, monotone, unbearably empty.

            "I've missed you." Florence remains silent. Anatoly shifts his weight between his feet, fidgeting, trying not to stare. She's so thin. Both physically and emotionally she seems to be a shell of the woman he once knew, the woman he loved. "How are you?"

            "Fine." Her short answers aren't harsh or bitter, just...short, concise, unexpanded. If Anatoly wants a conversation, he'll have to drive it, and be patient with the answers. The instinct of most men would be to react explosively, to be volatile in the responses. But Anatoly knows her. Exploding would only harden the outer layer she's built up around herself, widen the gap between them.

            "Are you here competing or as a second?" He can't help his curiosity. Is she back with Freddie? Has she found someone else? But to ask those questions would be prying too far.

            "Competing." His heart swells with pride. She was always good enough to compete, talented enough to win.

             "And your second?" A logical next question, right? Theres so much he wants to learn, so much time to make up for, so much he wants to say.

            "I don't have one." _Oh_. There's so much he could read into that, the many reasons why she might compete alone and what all that might mean. The boards and pieces are all put away now. Her body angles slightly toward him, though her gaze remains fixed on the table beside them, one hand fidgeting with the case in front of her, her hair falling around her face. To his knowledge her hair had always been long, flowing, cascading down her back. Now it doesn't even reach her shoulders. He reaches out a hand to tuck a softly curling tendril behind her ear, to unhide her face again. At his touch she stiffens a fraction, every nerve standing on edge.

            "Your hair is cute." He tries for a lighter subject, but again, she doesn't answer. Memories flash through Florence's mind, unexpressed on her face. She remembers the fear, the pain. She struggles to keep her breaths even as she remembers being held up, being dragged across the ground by her hair, chunks being ripped out, the excruciating pain from what she'd later find out was a large rock before the blissful lack of consciousness. She remembers waking up to the smell of antiseptic, her hair gone, an aneurysm they'd said. A hole drilled in her head to relieve the pressure. She wished they could have drained the memories as well. A rasped, desperate question breaks through her rabbit hole of memories.

            "What did you name it?" He'd counted the months, wondering a million different questions. Would it look like him, like her? Would it have his unruly dark hair, her sparkling green eyes? Would it play chess? Would he ever get to meet their child?

            "Tolya." Her voice cracks, the first outward sign of emotion she's displayed since Anatoly first approached. Her steeled expression might hide the wave of emotions flooding through her, but she cant control the tremors that run through her fingers. Anatoly's tone is soft, cautious, nervous.

            "Ren...how is he?" A single tear rolls down her cheek. Anatoly wonders if he's ever seen her cry. Her eyes had filled with tears but she'd never allowed him to see them spill over. He gently covers one of her hands with his own. Hers is cold, shaky. His heart sinks at her broken, whispered response.

            "He is _gone_."


End file.
